and here i always thought you were born again when you were Baptized...
Posted on 04/14/2005 12:00:51 PM PDT by Dean Baker
Baptist church 'fake pope' sign attracting attention, criticism By JEANNINE F. HUNTER, hunter@knews.com April 13, 2005
NEWPORT, Tenn. - Two days after being posted, a church marquee message that questions the purpose of the papacy is still attracting attention in this small community.
"What I am trying to do is to let people know there's only one way to heaven through Jesus Christ," said the Rev. Cline Franklin, pastor of Hilltop Baptist Church. "There's no need for help. God sent his son, Jesus Christ. We're all priests if we're saved. I don't need to go to anybody else to pray."
The sign's side facing Broadway, the main thoroughfare in Newport, reads, "No truth, No hope Following a hell-bound pope!" On the other side, facing the church parking lot, it reads: "False hope in a fake pope."
The message appeared days after Pope John Paul II's funeral last week.
"It is unfortunate when it comes from within the Christian church. It's really sad," said the Rev. Dan Whitman, 54, pastor of Newport's Good Shepherd Catholic parish and Holy Trinity parish in Jefferson City. "You learn how to deal with it and pray not to be that way yourself."
It does not reflect mainstream Baptist thought, said Dr. Merrill "Mel" Hawkins, associate professor of religion and director of the Center for Baptist Studies at Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City.
"When you see signs like that, they are almost like relics or artifacts of a bygone era," Hawkins said.
He spoke about animus between Protestants and Catholics persisting after the Protestant Reformation and for centuries, during which "harsh things were said, couched within misperceptions, misunderstandings."
Among the major misperceptions is that Catholics "venerate the pope on the same level as Jesus," Hawkins said, and that "the pope is connected to their salvation in place of Jesus Christ."
Catholics make up about 12 percent of the population in the South.
"Catholics are a minority faith in the South, and there's often bias toward minority religious communities because people don't understand," he said.
James Gaddis, a lay speaker who also chairs the board at First United Methodist Church, said he had not seen the sign but had heard about it.
"I understand that it's very degrading," he said. "I think it's tragic that any church group would stoop to this posture."
Following Tuesday night's council meeting, Newport Mayor Roland Dykes Jr. said he was a little saddened by the message.
"It doesn't behoove any of us to determine who is going to heaven or hell. I think the pope is a highly, highly respected person," he said.
Franklin's church is a five-year-old independent Baptist church. When asked what the message meant, he said: "What does 'pope' mean? It means father. We have a heavenly father, and the Bible says we shall call no man a father. "
He said people have been driving by or taking pictures or calling to share their views. He said the intent was not to offend Catholics and people are misunderstanding the sign.
Copyright 2005, Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.
Because that would cut into the "reverend's" ten percent....
You know why that is? Most people think you worship a mortal - Mary. Everything is Mary, not Christ. There's Mary's beads, statues, prayers, ornaments of Mary, but very little has to do with the one who bought you.
I always thought the Catholics made Mary their Goddess. That's all I ever saw. If one listens closely, they'll notice Mary is used to get to Christ in the end.
Well...I guess that's better than being called the AntiChrist.
But still...You're wrong. But, have at it...What ever gets you off. Personally, I've found some interesting comments (Flame free at that!!) on a subject that I've wondered about for some time.
Hey, did anybody catch that Jazz-Spurs game last night?
and here i always thought you were born again when you were Baptized...
I myself am baptist. Years ago I married into a Catholic Family. At the time I was not baptist... Matter of fact I was in essence an agnostic. I believe that there was a God, but knew nothing about Him, nor had any interest in learning.
My family would do the occasional Christmas or Easter Mass, and maybe 1 or 2 other services in a year. My son (age 4 at the time) could tell you all about vampires, ghosts, ghouls, etc because he would overhear me playing Dungeons and Dragons a couple of times a week. My wife didn't like that, so she challenged me to Read the Bible for 30 days rather than play Dungeons and Dragons.
I started reading the Bible and we started attending church at the Catholic church where my wife grew up. After 30 days of Bible study, I told her that there were some things being taught in her church that appeared to be "twisted" out of context with what I was reading in the Bible. To say the least, she was not pleased with this statement. After a while thought, she started checking out the teachings with what was in the Bible. She also eventually came to the conclusion that there were things "not quite right" with what was being taught.
Now please don't get me wrong. I am not Catholic bashing. The Catholic church we were attending was very conservative in its' views. And there were many good things being taught, but there were many times that some of the things they taught as "fact" were often what I would see as a "gray area". We checked out some other Catholic churches in the area and found that there were varying degrees of Catholic Churches. We encountered some that were fairly bible centered, while others had gone off the deep end (where hymns were being sung to "Earth, how she loved us").
My wife and I no longer attend Catholic church, going now to a Local Independent Baptist church. As I said, my wife's side of the family is ALL Catholic. I have found some to be very correct in the essential teachings (That Christ is the ONLY way to Heaven, claiming that it is he whom they put their trust. I have also encountered the other extremes, encountering those who "DO" pray to Mary (they don't want to bother Jesus with their prayers, so they trust in Mary to take their petitions to Jesus), and some who even believe that all the worlds religions are pathways to God (in essence, we are all trying to get to the same place, we just take different paths).
I say all this just to say that within the Catholic church, just as any other denomination, there are those who are keeping to the core essentials, and those who are not.
I will share this though. There are things in the Catechism of the Catholic church that are not biblical. and I have found that the Catholics I know who are more bible centered tend to disagree with some of the views that are in the catechism.
You're only interested in playing these people like a backwoods banjo. I'm surprised that they are falling for it. The moderator will eventually see what you are up to
And as to the passages from John, I wholeheartedly embrace them, and depend on their truth moment by moment. All Christians do.
Dan
Mary's Sinlessness has to do with the Church's interpretation of "full of Grace" (which I'm sure you would disagree with) and the Tradition handed down by the Apostles (which you would also disagree with).
I specified Americans because I always think of Tariq Aziz referring to himself as a Christian and I don't know enough about how "Christianity" is practiced in other parts of the world, but it seems that TA was called a Christian for reasons other than following Jesus.
First 6 years.
And I must confess...I didn't really care for it. Coming from a family that didn't practice, I wasn't really pressed to take much of a real active interest.
But no...We didn't have any bibles for any kind of bible study. Of course they were available, all over. Just not "Studied" like I've seen other religions do.
But then again, maybe that's common for the first 6 years?
Yeah...Duncan still isn't back at his game. Spurs were sluggish.
I won't disagree with anything. I'm too ignorant on the subject. But I do remember the "Full of Grace" thing. Don't really know what it means though.
I started reading the Bible and we started attending church at the Catholic church where my wife grew up. After 30 days of Bible study, I told her that there were some things being taught in her church that appeared to be "twisted" out of context with what I was reading in the Bible.
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BINGO! And this does not just go with catholics. There are a lot of churches who bend to people's wishes instead of preaching the gospel from God's word. This is where you see a lot of people getting into the left wing movments about accepting homosexuality as a "normal" life style when the Bible out right says its a sin.
anywho. excellent post.
If you put up a Christmas tree and decorate Easter eggs, you're mixing Christianity with paganism.
We know that Mary was sinless because the angel Gabriel declared her so ("full of grace"). Man fell from grace by Original Sin. Grace was unattainable. Man could not enter heaven. The prophets were sais to rest "in the bosom of Abraham". Logic thus dictates if the angel Gabriel was being honest in calling Mary "full of grace", then she was saved from Original Sin by her saviour, Jesus Christ, at the time of her conception ("The Immaculate Conception").
The ark of the covenant carried the presence of God in the Old Testament. Mary carried the presence of God in the New Testament. Take note of the painstaking detail God commands of His people in building the ark (then the Temple later on) where He would reside. Chapter after chapter of exact measurements and decoration and procedure. Now tell me the Lord would gestate in any old womb of any old girl.
If the ark of the covenant was pristine, what then of the mother of Jesus Christ - God Himself?
Just because it doesn't say "SHE WAS SINLESS!" in bold letters, doesn't mean it's not scriptural. Just as nowhere do we find the word "Trinity" in the Bible, and fought back heresy after heresy questioning the Divine nature of Christ with the traditional understanding gained by the Magisterium, most Protestants agree that the Trinity exists as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Just as the Bible does not contain the admonition, "create a Bible", Protestants accept the Wisdom of the Church in determining that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are the only Divinely inspired Gospels among the thirty or so that circulated before the canon was compiled. And this was determined not by citing the letters of Paul, but through Old Testament writings and oral tradition passed on by the Church patricians leading up to the Council.
These are historical facts which cannot be denied.
I guess if you're interested you can wait and see. Maybe you'll even add something to the discussion later.
"Full of Grace"
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God's grace covers all your sins - past, present and future when you accept him as your personal savior. It is only through the shedding of Jesus's blood that this is possible (at least thats what I believe based again, on the Bible).
"What about practicing and non-practicing Jews? Or even Orthadox or Reformed (Or whatever the proper terms are) Jews? "
If they are born out of the Jewish nation, yes.
Remember God was speaking to the Israelites as a nation of people. There was no distinction between whether they were 'natural born' jews or not.
"(And to really throw a twist in here...What about converts??)"
Does the bible make a distinction between 'natural' jews or 'converts'?
What I find ironic is that he quotes, correctly, the Bible as saying that God said to call no one father but Him, yet he judges people to Hell when the Bible also says, "Judge not lest ye be judged."
We're all sinners, every last one of us, and we've got our own transgessions to concern ourselves with.
As I said in an earlier post, who's going to burn in hell and who's not is something to be left to God's judgment. We lowly humans have no business getting into that.
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